brightness, should proceed in gloom; and their hearts, or their
imaginations, answered them and said, that the bliss of childhood
gushes from its innocence. But it happened that an unexpected
addition was made to the heavenly little band. It was Ilbrahim,
who came towards the children with a look of sweet confidence on
his fair and spiritual face, as if, having manifested his love to
one of them, he had no longer to fear a repulse from their
society. A hush came over their mirth the moment they beheld him,
and they stood whispering to each other while he drew nigh; but,
all at once, the devil of their fathers entered into the
unbreeched fanatics, and sending up a fierce, shrill cry, they
rushed upon the poor Quaker child. In an instant, he was the
centre of a brood of baby-fiends, who lifted sticks against him,
pelted him with stones, and displayed an instinct of destruction
far more loathsome than the bloodthirstiness of manhood.

The invalid, in the meanwhile, stood apart from the tumult,
crying out with a loud voice, "Fear not, Ilbrahim, come hither
and take my hand;" and his unhappy friend endeavored to obey him.
After watching the victim's struggling approach with a calm smile
and unabashed eye, the foulhearted little villain lifted his
staff and struck Ilbrahim on the mouth, so forcibly that the
blood issued in a stream. The poor child's arms had been raised
to guard his head from the storm of blows; but now he dropped
them at once. His persecutors beat him down, trampled upon him,
dragged him by his long, fair locks, and Ilbrahim was on the
point of becoming as veritable a martyr as ever entered bleeding
into heaven. The uproar, however, attracted the notice of a few
neighbors, who put themselves to the trouble of rescuing the
little heretic, and of conveying him to Pearson's door.